Remembrances
by headslapdiva
Summary: Tragedy hits the team when one of them loses someone very near and dear to them.


**Disclaimer:** Don Bellisario and CBS own the rights to NCIS and the characters contained within this story. No copyright infringement is intended.

It had been a year since Sarah McGee first started working for Ducky, helping him take care of his mother. She loved her job very much, and soon started spending more time with the Mallards than she did in her dorm at Waverly. One particular Saturday, Sarah was preparing afternoon tea, just the way Mrs. Mallard liked it; a strong Earl Gray, however she refrained from bringing out the scotch she had seen the older woman add to her tea from time to time. Her charge had been complaining of a headache for most of the morning, and scotch wouldn't help her one bit. She poked her head into the all too quiet sitting room and saw the older woman dozing in her chair. "Mrs. Mallard, it's time for your afternoon tea," Sarah said, approaching the armchair and gently tapped her on the shoulder. She didn't stir. "Mrs. Mallard?" Contessa whined at Sarah and nudged her mistress' leg. Sarah quickly leaped into action and moved Victoria's body to the floor, listening for any signs of breathing while feeling for a pulse and found nothing. "Oh, God!" She shoved her hands into her Waverly Univeristy hooded sweatshirt pocket and dug out her cell phone, quickly dialing 9-1-1.

"9-1-1 operator, please state your emergency," a cool, calm voice said at the other end of the line.

"Send an ambulance, please. I'm looking after an elderly woman and she has no pulse and she's not breathing." Sarah tried to keep calm, but found it difficult.

"Ma'am, we're sending an ambulance. Have you begun to administer CPR?"

Sarah shook her head before realizing that the woman at the other end couldn't see her. "No. I'll start." She hung up and began performing CPR until the medics arrived. "I'm going with her," she said as they loaded Mrs. Mallard into the ambulance.

"Are you family, Miss?" one of the medics asked.

Sarah shook her head. "We're not related, but I'm her weekend caretaker. I promise to stay out of the way while you work." It wasn't far to the nearest hospital, however it was too late for Victoria Mallard. As the medics wheeled the older woman's body to the hospital morgue, Sarah sat in the emergency room waiting area in shock. She reached for her phone and automatically dialed her brother's number.

"Special Agent McGee." His voice sounded so calm and normal, like he didn't just watch a woman he was responsible for looking after die in front of him.

"Tim?" she said, trying her hardest not to cry, but this was all her fault. "Something terrible has happened."

* * *

Victoria's funeral was a quiet affair. All of Tim's coworkers showed up, showing their support for their friend's loss. Ziva and Sarah didn't leave Ducky's side during the service, until he joined Tony, Tim, Gibbs, Jimmy, and his old assistant Gerald to serve as pallbearers. The ceremony was a blur to Sarah, who sat there, thinking about what she could have done differently. She should have checked on Mrs. Mallard more while she was doing the dishes. The older woman had complained of a headache, and the coroner said she had died from a hemorrhagic stroke. It didn't take much for her to put two and two together. This was all her fault. She should have taken Mrs. Mallard to the hospital immediately after she complained of her headache. Two arms wrapped around her waist, and Ziva and Abby led her out of the pew as they made their way out of the church.

After the burial ceremony, the group gathered at a pub near Ducky's home, remembering his mother. Sarah stayed near Ducky and Ziva, even though she was afraid the older man blamed her for his mother's death. No one seemed to notice how quiet the youngest member of their group was while she sipped her water. "Remember the time you had to bring your mom in with you?" Abby piped up from across the table. Sarah looked up and saw the goth woman curled up in Gibbs' lap, looking a bit more cheerful than she had at church.

Ducky nodded with a ghost of a smile. While that had been a trying day, he could recall it with more humor and less embarrassment. "She accused us of sleeping together, my dear." Sarah bit her lip in order to keep from smiling. Why was she smiling?

"And then she tried hitting on Gibbs," Abby said with a smirk, ignoring Gibbs' scowl at the slight titter of laughter from his coworkers. "What? You told me about that. I thought it would be a good memory to share." Everyone nodded in agreement except for Sarah, and they began to share their own stories of Victoria.

"Sarah, if there's anything I've learned in my field of work, it's that through death there is an affirmation of life through remembrance," Ducky said softly. Why was the poor girl so quiet? "Come on, I'm sure you have a good tale of your weekends with my mother you can recall."

Sarah took a shaky breath and began to tell everyone about her first day on the job, and Mrs. Mallard's advice echoed in her memory. _"Do it, and damn the consequences of what others think!"_ She told them about how Mrs. Mallard swam in the rain with the hippos in Kenya, and how she jumped into the pond on campus and swam in the rain. Tim looked like he wanted to tell his sister not to go swimming in strange ponds in the middle of a rainstorm, but everyone else listened with rapt attention. When she finished her story, she got up and left the pub. She couldn't breathe, the tiny voice in the back of her mind kept taunting her. "It's all your fault." It was all her fault. She leaned against the brick wall and sobbed.

That's where Ducky and Ziva found her, sitting on the dirty pavement, almost all cried out. "Come on," he said, helping Ziva pull the young girl to her feet. "Up you get."

"It's my fault, Ducky," Sarah hiccuped, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand.

Ducky was confused, but he offered her his handkerchief. "What is? And I promise it's clean."

She sniffled again and tried to dry her tears. "Your mother died from a stroke and I didn't realize it until it was too late. I should have done something!"

Ducky hugged Sarah and Ziva awkwardly pet the girl's back. "My mother was ninety-nine years old. She had a long and eventful life. None of this was your fault." She sniffled against Ducky's shoulder and shook her head. This _was _her fault. "Come on my dear. You'll feel better after a good night's sleep." Ziva nodded and darted back inside.

"McGee, Ducky and I are taking Sarah home with us," she said softly. "We do not think she should be alone tonight."

"Go, just don't do anything that Sarah could hear through the walls." McGee tried to smile at his bad joke, and earned a head slap from Tony for "stealing his act." A few minutes later, the trio all crammed in Ducky's Morgan and drove back. It was a tight squeeze, Sarah practically had Ziva sitting in her lap and her legs were going numb, but she didn't care. Once they reached Ducky's home, Ziva took Sarah to the guest bedroom and helped her undress, giving her some of her pajamas to borrow, and tucked her in as Ducky entered.

"Will she be all right, Ducky?" Ziva asked, looking down at the sad, defeated girl staring out the window. "Will iyou/i be all right?"

With a sigh, he wrapped his arms around Ziva. "Not at first, but as time goes on, we will be. Eventually."


End file.
